TARAVELLA v. Stanley, (AC 17077)

• Decision Date: 30 March 1999
• Docket Number: (AC 17077)
• Citation: 52 Conn. App. 431,727 A.2d 727
• Court: Connecticut Court of Appeals
• Parties: MARK TARAVELLA v. DEBRA STANLEY

52 Conn. App. 431

727 A.2d 727

MARK TARAVELLA v. DEBRA STANLEY

(AC 17077)

Appellate Court of Connecticut.

Argued November 4, 1998.

Officially released March 30, 1999.

Foti, Schaller and Healey, Js.

George R. Temple, for the appellant (plaintiff).

J. Bernard Davis, assistant attorney general, with whom, on the brief, were Richard Blumenthal, attorney general, and Donald M. Longley, assistant attorney general, for the appellee (state).

Robert W. Shaver II, for the minor child.

Opinion

HEALEY, J.

This appeal involves the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act (URESA), General Statutes (Rev. to 1995) § 46b-180 et seq.¹ The issue to be decided is whether under our URESA statute a respondent² in an action on the issue of paternity is entitled to a jury trial under General Statutes (Rev. to 1995) § 46b-164.³ In oral argument before this court, the respondent's counsel abandoned any constitutional claim, state or federal, that he had made,⁴ and thus, we are presented solely with the statutory issue of whether the respondent is entitled to a jury trial on the issue of paternity under § 46b-164.

The following facts are relevant to this appeal. The petitioner, Debra Stanley, initiated a petition in Michigan to establish the paternity of a child, born to her on December 10, 1994. This petition was initiated under Michigan's Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act and then forwarded to Connecticut. On October 16, 1995, the respondent, Mark Taravella, appeared⁵ through counsel in Connecticut and filed a denial of paternity. He also requested that the court order genetic testing of the petitioner, the minor child and himself to assist in the resolution of the issue of paternity. The results of the genetic testing indicated that the probability of paternity was 99.75 percent that the respondent was the child's biological father.

After reviewing the genetic test results, the respondent filed a motion for disclosure of facts, production of records and interrogatories on February 26, 1996. The petitioner complied with this requested discovery on March 1, 1996. On April 16, 1996, the respondent's counsel went to Michigan to take the petitioner's deposition. The petitioner appeared for the deposition and has consistently complied with every request for discovery that the respondent has made.

Thereafter, on August 1, 1996, the respondent moved for trial by jury. That motion was denied by a family support magistrate. On October 28, 1994, after a trial of the issues to the magistrate, a determination of paternity was entered against the respondent. The respondent then appealed to the Superior Court. See General Statutes (Rev. to 1995) § 46b-231 (n). The Superior Court, Shortall, J., affirmed the decision of the magistrate.⁶ This appeal followed. On appeal to this court, the respondent claims that the fact that an action is brought under the URESA statute does not preclude a respondent from his right to a jury trial under § 46b-164. The respondent's claim involves a number of subissues, which we discuss in turn.

Initially, we note certain relevant principles that we will supplement during our discussion. "In 1950, the Commissioners of Uniform State Law enacted the Uniform Reciprocal Enforcement of Support Act ... in an attempt to aid the enforcement of support obligations between persons residing in separate states. This act, currently law in every state of the United States, provides an inexpensive and efficient enforcement mechanism for the `interstate' collection of child support." 2 N. Vitek, Disputed Paternity Proceedings (5th Ed. 1998) § 31.01. The primary purpose of URESA is to provide a simple two state procedure by which the obligor's (respondent's) duty to support an obligee (petitioner) may be enforced expeditiously and with a minimum of expense to the obligee. See Proctor v. Sachner, 143 Conn. 9, 12, 118 A.2d 621 (1955); Koon v. Boulder County Dept. of Social Services, 494 So. 2d 1126, 1129 (Fla. 1986); Dept. of Human Resources v. Westmoreland, 210 Ga. App. 603, 436 S.E.2d 706, cert. denied, 210 Ga. App. 901 (1993); Paton v. Brill, 104 Ohio App. 3d 826, 829, 663 N.E.2d 421 (1995); Clarkston v. Bridge, 273 Or. 68, 71, 539 P.2d 1094 (1975); Bushway v. Riendeau, 137 Vt. 455, 459, 407 A.2d 178 (1979); State v. Grenley, 78 Wash. App. 864, 867, 899 P.2d 830 (1995). "URESA creates no duty of support itself, but instead simply provides a means to enforce a duty of support as it may exist under the law of the responding state." Johnson v. Johnson, 264 Ill. App. 3d 662, 664, 636 N.E.2d 1013 (1994); see Esteb v. Enright, 563 N.E.2d 139, 141 (Ind. App. 1990); Horch v. Ponik, 132 Wis. 2d 373, 378, 392 N.W.2d 123, rev. denied, 132 Wis. 2d 484, 393 N.W.2d 544 (1986). The remedies provided under URESA are "in addition to and not in substitution for any other remedies." General Statutes (Rev. to 1995) § 46b-181; see, e.g., Dept. of Human Resources v. Westmoreland, supra, 603; Daniel-Nordin v. Nordin, 173 Wis. 2d 635, 648, 495 N.W.2d 318 (1993). This court has said that "[i]n URESA cases, this court gives great weight to decisions from other jurisdictions in compliance with the mandate of General Statutes § 46b-209, which provides that `[t]his part shall be [so interpreted and] construed as to [effectuate] its general purpose to make uniform the laws of the states which enact it.'" Fischer v. Goldstein, 14 Conn. App. 487, 492 n.6, 542 A.2d 731, cert. denied, 208 Conn. 814, 546 A.2d 280 (1988). URESA is a remedial statute and is to be liberally construed. See, e.g., In re Marriage of Ryall, 154 Cal. App. 3d 743, 751, 201 Cal. Rptr. 504 (1984); Illinois v. Sterling, 248 Minn. 266, 274, 80 N.W.2d 13 (1956); Scott v. Sylvester, 220 Va. 182, 185, 257 S.E.2d 774 (1979), on appeal after remand, 225 Va. 304, 302 S.E.2d 30, cert. denied, 464 U.S. 961, 104 S. Ct. 395, 78 L. Ed. 2d 338 (1983); Yetter v. Commeau, 84 Wash. 2d 155, 159, 524 P.2d 901 (1974); 73 Am. Jur. 2d, Statutes § 338 (1974).

Although the 1958 revision of URESA is silent concerning a court's authority to adjudicate paternity in an interstate proceeding, neither party to this case claims that the court here lacked such authority and the majority of courts⁷ addressing this question appear to have taken "a more desirable approach" and "[t]hese better reasoned decisions take a broader, less restrictive view of section 7⁸ [URESA] and conclude that adjudication of paternity is well within the scope of the URESA support proceeding." 2 N. Vitek, supra, § 31.06. The Oregon Supreme Court's decision in Clarkston v. Bridge, supra, 273 Or. 68, exemplifies that view. In Clarkston, the court said, "URESA authorizes both the finding and the enforcement of duties of support which have not been previously established in another proceeding." Id., 72. The Clarkston court reasoned that, in determining whether the respondent owed a duty of support to the child involved, the court first had to decide whether the respondent was the father of the child. Therefore, it observed that since the order of support portion of its URESA statute authorized its circuit court to find and enforce a duty of support in a URESA proceeding, "the statutory authority to establish paternity ... seems clearly implied." Id., 73. In Fisher v. Goldstein, supra, 14 Conn. App. 490, this court said: "The fact that this is a URESA action and not a traditional paternity proceeding is no impediment to the trial court's finding of paternity. It is well established that a court sitting in a URESA proceeding has jurisdiction to determine paternity. See annot., 81 A.L.R.3d 1175 [1977], Determination of Paternity of Child as Within Scope of Proceeding Under [URESA]."

The respondent raises a number of issues in support of his basic claim that he is not precluded in this URESA proceeding from electing a trial by jury under § 46b-164. He claims that there is nothing in URESA that takes away his right to a jury trial set out in § 46b-164 even though § 46b-164 is set out in another chapter of our statutes, i.e., chapter 815y. In doing so, he points to § 46b-181 in URESA, which is entitled "Remedies additional to existing remedies" and which states that "[t]he remedies herein provided are in addition to and not in substitution for any other remedies." Going on, the respondent claims that under § 46b-197,⁹ which provides that the proceedings are to be conducted "in the manner prescribed by law for an action for the enforcement of the type of duty of support claimed...."

According to the respondent, because URESA is silent as to a jury trial, § 46b-181 entitles him to elect a jury trial under § 46b-164, even though this latter statute is found in a different chapter of our General Statutes than the URESA statute. Furthermore, in oral argument before us, the respondent specifically claimed that the "in addition to and not in substitution for any other remedies for" language of § 46b-181 overrides the language of § 46b-164 confining it to chapter 815y, despite the fact that the legislature, in enacting our URESA statute, left the language of § 46b-164 totally untouched. The respondent also maintains that the legislature's failure expressly to override § 46b-164 does not preclude this entitlement to a jury trial under § 46b-164 because § 46b-231 (m) (5)¹⁰ makes the jury trial option available to him.

In countering the respondent's claims, the petitioner argues that § 46b-164 is contained in chapter 815y of the General Statutes, whereas the URESA court's ability to determine the support obligation is authorized by General Statutes (Rev. to 1995) §§ 46b-198¹¹ and 46b-180 (4),¹² which are contained in chapter 816. The petitioner also argues that the legislature intended to exclude URESA fathers from the scope of § 46b-164 because the clear language of § 46b-164 limits that statute to "prosecutions" encompassed by chapter 815y and, accordingly, absent legislation to the contrary, this court "must" not apply § 46b-164...